PORT ANGELES — Port of Port Angeles commissioners voted 2-1 Tuesday to endorse two Port Angeles School District ballot measures: a school levy renewal and a bond issue to build a new high school.
Lending their support were Commissioners Jim Hallett, who lives in the school district, and Colleen McAleer, although her children attend Sequim schools.
While Commissioner John Calhoun said he hoped the measures would pass, he withheld his endorsement, saying it was outside the purview of a countywide port district.
“I wish you all the luck in the world,” Calhoun told school supporters who addressed commissioners.
He said he had worked “tirelessly” on behalf of similar measures in earlier years in the Quillayute School District in Forks, where his children attended school, but had not sought the support of port commissioners.
Port Angeles levy and bond supporters Tuesday were the first to ask port commissioners to endorse a ballot measure, said commissioners.
No similar requests for endorsement came from Sequim schools or the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center (SARC), which also have measures on the Feb. 10 special election ballot. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters Jan. 21.
Opposition to the Port Angeles endorsement came from Shelley Taylor of Port Angeles, who said the state must address widescale school funding — as the state Legislature has been ordered to do in the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision — rather than districts funding construction and operations piece by piece with levies and bond issues.
McAleer agreed with Taylor: “I don’t like the system. I don’t like the way it’s set up.”
“But who suffers?” she asked. “I don’t want to see students suffer because of a systemic problem of taxation in the state.”
She and Hallett had no problem with the commissioners of the countywide port district endorsing a single school district’s tax issue.
“The public looks to its elected leaders for direction,” Hallett said. “We represent the entire county.”
“Our mission is economic development,” McAleer said, “economic prosperity in our county,” and education is crucial to that mission.
The Port Angeles School District levy would cost an estimated $3.26 per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value to collect $8.6 million in 2016 and $8.8 million in 2017.
The maintenance-and-operations levy — which would replace the existing levy rate that expires at the end of this year — would cost the owner of a $200,000 home an estimated $652 a year in 2016 and 2017.
A levy requires a simple majority for passage.
The two-year term was chosen over the usual four-year levy length because of the Legislature’s pending efforts to fund education.
The bond issue would cost an estimated $2.06 per $1,000 of assessed value to raise a maximum of $98.3 million to replace academic buildings at Port Angeles High School and refurbish the performing arts center. The high school gym would stay as is.
A 60 percent majority is required for voter passage of a school bond issue. Also, there must be a 40 percent voter turnout based on the number of votes cast in the school district in the Nov. 4 general election.
Earlier this month, Olympic Medical Center commissioners endorsed the Port Angeles and Sequim measures and will entertain endorsing SARC at their next meeting Jan. 21.
The Sequim School District is seeking a $49.5 million bond for a new elementary school, new classrooms at Greywolf Elementary and Sequim High schools, and renovation of other buildings.
SARC is asking district property owners to pay 12 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value for each of the next six years in a levy expected to generate about $416,000 annually.
The Port Angeles City Council, while expressing individual support for the Port Angeles ballot issues, declined to endorse them as a council.
The Sequim City on Monday declined to endorse as a whole the Sequim schools measure or the SARC proposal.
In other port action, commissioners:
■ Approved a “not to exceed” $331,369 contract with consultant Floyd Snider for continued planning work to clean up the former mill site on Port Angeles Harbor.
The port has allocated $4.5 million to clean up the 70-year-old former mill site, which is contaminated with petrochemicals.
■ Approved $284,278 to replace a heat pump at the 1010 Building at Fairchild International Airport industrial park used by Westport Shipyard.
■ Approved 150 boat launch passes worth $1,500 at the Boat Haven Marina in Port Angeles for the Port Angeles Salmon Club Halibut Derby on May 23-25 and an equal number at John Wayne Marina for the Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby from Feb. 20-22.
■ Approved auctioning the 28-foot powerboat Knot Much for $1,600 in delinquent slip fees at the Boat Haven.
■ Re-elected Hallett as chairman, Calhoun as vice chairman and McAleer as secretary of the board for 2015.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
